Reading and Writing Parquet Data in an Object Store

The PXF object store connectors support reading and writing Parquet-format data. This section describes how to use PXF to access Parquet-format data in an object store, including how to create and query an external table that references a Parquet file in the store.

Note: Accessing Parquet-format data from an object store is very similar to accessing Parquet-format data in HDFS. This topic identifies object store-specific information required to read and write Parquet data, and links to the PXF HDFS Parquet documentation where appropriate for common information.

Prerequisites

Ensure that you have met the PXF Object Store Prerequisites before you attempt to read data from or write data to an object store.

Data Type Mapping

Refer to Data Type Mapping in the PXF HDFS Parquet documentation for a description of the mapping between Greenplum Database and Parquet data types.

Creating the External Table

The PXF <objstore>:parquet profiles support reading and writing data in Parquet format. PXF supports the following <objstore> profile prefixes:

Object Store	Profile Prefix
Azure Blob Storage	wasbs
Azure Data Lake	adl
Google Cloud Storage	gs
MinIO	s3
S3	s3

Use the following syntax to create a Greenplum Database external table that references an HDFS directory. When you insert records into a writable external table, the block(s) of data that you insert are written to one or more files in the directory that you specified.

CREATE [WRITABLE] EXTERNAL TABLE <table_name>
    ( <column_name> <data_type> [, ...] | LIKE <other_table> )
LOCATION ('pxf://<path-to-dir>
    ?PROFILE=<objstore>:parquet&SERVER=<server_name>[&<custom-option>=<value>[...]]')
FORMAT 'CUSTOM' (FORMATTER='pxfwritable_import'|'pxfwritable_export')
[DISTRIBUTED BY (<column_name> [, ... ] ) | DISTRIBUTED RANDOMLY];

The specific keywords and values used in the Greenplum Database CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE command are described in the table below.

Keyword	Value
<path‑to‑dir>	The path to the directory in the object store. When the <server_name> configuration includes a pxf.fs.basePath property setting, PXF considers <path‑to‑dir> to be relative to the base path specified. Otherwise, PXF considers it to be an absolute path. <path‑to‑dir> must not specify a relative path nor include the dollar sign ($) character.
PROFILE=<objstore>:parquet	The PROFILE keyword must identify the specific object store. For example, s3:parquet.
SERVER=<server_name>	The named server configuration that PXF uses to access the data.
<custom‑option>=<value>	Parquet-specific custom options are described in the PXF HDFS Parquet documentation.
FORMAT ‘CUSTOM’	Use FORMAT ‘CUSTOM’ with (FORMATTER='pxfwritable_export') (write) or (FORMATTER='pxfwritable_import') (read).
DISTRIBUTED BY	If you want to load data from an existing Greenplum Database table into the writable external table, consider specifying the same distribution policy or <column_name> on both tables. Doing so will avoid extra motion of data between segments on the load operation.

If you are accessing an S3 object store:

• You can provide S3 credentials via custom options in the CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE command as described in Overriding the S3 Server Configuration with DDL.
• If you are reading Parquet data from S3, you can direct PXF to use the S3 Select Amazon service to retrieve the data. Refer to Using the Amazon S3 Select Service for more information about the PXF custom option used for this purpose.

Example

Refer to the Example in the PXF HDFS Parquet documentation for a Parquet write/read example. Modifications that you must make to run the example with an object store include:

• Using the CREATE WRITABLE EXTERNAL TABLE syntax and LOCATION keywords and settings described above for the writable external table. For example, if your server name is s3srvcfg:

  CREATE WRITABLE EXTERNAL TABLE pxf_tbl_parquet_s3 (location text, month text, number_of_orders int, item_quantity_per_order int[], total_sales double precision)
    LOCATION ('pxf://BUCKET/pxf_examples/pxf_parquet?PROFILE=s3:parquet&SERVER=s3srvcfg')
  FORMAT 'CUSTOM' (FORMATTER='pxfwritable_export');
  

• Using the CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE syntax and LOCATION keywords and settings described above for the readable external table. For example, if your server name is s3srvcfg:

  CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE read_pxf_parquet_s3(location text, month text, number_of_orders int, item_quantity_per_order int[], total_sales double precision)
    LOCATION ('pxf://BUCKET/pxf_examples/pxf_parquet?PROFILE=s3:parquet&SERVER=s3srvcfg')
  FORMAT 'CUSTOM' (FORMATTER='pxfwritable_import');